Larry Hagman – The Magnificent 60s

The ensemble picture provided a showcase for new talent. But consider the gender imbalance at work. Only Candice Bergen proved a breakout star of any longevity compared to a flop like The Magnificent Seven (1960) from which six relative newcomers – Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Eli Wallach (only his fourth movie) and Horst Buchholz – became top-billed material.

Part of the problem was Hollywood itself, not enough good roles for actresses who weren’t destined for spy movies or to become a decorative supporting player, and who could not headline a western, war picture or (with the exception of Bonnie and Clyde) a hardnosed crime movie. But part of the problem was the structure of The Group. Yes, there’s a 150-minute running time, but there are eight main characters to contend with.

And the story doesn’t have a central focus like The Magnificent Seven where characters are built in asides to the main action but has to meander in eight different directions. Luckily, it still remains a powerful confection, tackling, as if setting out to shock audiences, contentious issues like mental illness, leftwing politics, birth control and lesbianism. What could easily have descended into a chick flick or a glorified soap opera instead pushes in the direction of feminism.

A bunch of wealthy privileged university female graduate friends sets out in the 1930s to change the world only discover, to their amazement, that the male-dominated dominion chews them up and spits them out.

Only Lakey (Candice Bergen), who prefers the company of women, appears to find fulfilment but that’s mostly from running off to the more liberated Paris at the earliest opportunity to study art history though the Second World War puts an end to that.

Kay (Joanna Pettet) seems to have made the best marriage, with a wannabe alcoholic writer (Larry Hagman), but she ends up in a mental asylum. Dottie (Joan Hackett) also views life in the art world, marrying a painter, as the best option only to later prefer a more mundane husband. Priss (Elizabeth Hartmann), the strongest-minded of the octet, lands a man of a stronger, controlling, character.

Polly (Shirley Knight) is the most sexually adventurous. Ostensibly, Helena (Kathleen Widdoes), a renowned traveller, and Libby (Jessica Walter), a successful novelist, appear to achieve the greatest independence and success but come up short in that most important of endeavors, romance. The men, you should be warned, are all one-dimensional scumbags.

The movie focuses mainly on Kay, Polly and Libby. Lakey shows up at the beginning and the end.

At its best, it’s an insight into the world of women, on a grander scale than any of the tear-jerkers of previous decades. But it suffers from too many characters and too little time. It might have been better as a mini-series, though that, obviously, was not an option at the time. The Sidney Buchman (Cleopatra, 1963) screenplay fails to match the intensity of the critically-acclaimed source novel by Mary McCarthy, a huge bestseller.

It’s a surprising choice for Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, 1964), more mainstream than his general output, but while he clearly presents the characters in sympathetic fashion, his hallmark tension is missing.

Mostly, it works as a time-capsule of a time-capsule, a movie about the 1960s optimism of 1930s optimism, and the obstacles faced by both.

Only Candice Bergen (Soldier Blue, 1970) approached the level of success achieved by The Magnificent Seven motley crew, achieving top-billed status in a number of films and her screen persona, possibly as a result of this movie, was often independence. Leading lady in Will Penny (1968) and Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) was the height of success for Joan Hackett.

Already twice Oscar-nominated as a Supporting Actress, Shirley Knight was the best-known of The Group, but was only thereafter top-billed once, in the low-budget Dutchman (1966) although she won critical plaudits for The Rain People (1969).

An Oscar nominee for her debut A Patch of Blue (1965), Elizabeth Hartmann was top-billed in You’re A Big Boy Now (1967) and then fell into the supporting player bracket. Never top-billed, Joanna Pettet was a strong co-star for the rest of the decade but that was marked by flops like Blue (1968) and The Best House in London (1968) and she drifted into television.

Best known for Number One (1969) and Play Misty for Me (1971) Jessica Walter failed to achieve top-billing. Though, as a result of this review, it has been pointed out to me (thanks Mr Film-Authority) that I glossed over her brilliant performance in television show Arrested Development (2003-2019); in fact, if your search for her on imdb that TV series is the one that pops up first.

Most of the actresses did have long careers, sustained by leading roles in television or bit parts in movies but when you consider the success visited upon the group known as The Magnificent Seven you can’t help thinking this was a whole generation of talent going to waste because they could not be accommodated by the Hollywood machine and did not fit the industry prototype.

For another example of gender disparity you could compare the consequent comparative success of the stars of Valley of the Dolls and The Dirty Dozen, both out the following year.

Given unexpected heft by current concerns over AI. Human error, it appears, is more simple to correct than computer malfunction. Once a course of action commences, machines have no way of checking it. And paranoia is the first casualty of truth. Bear in mind this was shockingly contemporary at the time it was made, the world in constant fear of nuclear war, the Cold War, that seemingly endless stalemate doing little to pacify terror.

Those whose job it ease the best outcome in the event of nuclear war were always inclined to rationalize staggering death tolls. So we begin with a late night discussion in which political analyst Dr Groeteschele (Walter Matthau) makes the argument that in the event of war, the country with the fewest casualties is the winner and in a nod to the ironic suggests the most likely survivors would be the worst type of convict, imprisoned underground, and office workers protected from the blast by being surrounded by filing cabinets crammed full of paper.

Just before the real drama begins there’s a neat scene where a women, turned on by a powerful man, makes a move on the doctor only to be slapped into place, sternly told by the prim analyst that he’s not of “her kind.” That’s not the only human element in the tale. the highest levels of secrecy may force top-level Army and Government executives to sacrifice families.

For no accountable reason, jets with nuclear warheads shift into an attacking position on the Russian border, the target if not stopped Moscow. The planes are unstoppable once they commence attack, unable to turn away from a strict sequence of pre-determined action. Not even the personal intervention by the President (Henry Fonda) of the United States can affect the outcome, the pilots already trained to ignore such an action on the grounds that the enemy could be imitating the President’s voice.

When the planes fail to turn back, the only option is for the Americans to blow their own planes out of the sky, an action that appears not just inconceivable to the Army personnel but treasonable. High-rankings officers ruthless trained for battle and to observe the protocol of obeying orders find this unconscionable.

Three dramas take place at once. On the ground the Army chiefs try to explore every option to avoid the unthinkable while battling with their own consciences at what appears to be the only way out. The President on the hotline to the Russian premier has to circumvent natural suspicion that this is a cunning ploy by the Yanks and then come to some agreement with the Russians on the assumption that Moscow may yet come under attack. We, the audience, are playing out the third element in our minds, a series of terrifying what if scenarios with indescribable consequence.

I’m not going to reveal the shock ending because it came as a hell of a shock to me, given I’d not seen the picture in decades.

It’s brilliantly-made with almost futuristic sets and noir lighting and the President effectively physically imprisoned, and not just by his conscience, stuck in a featureless cell presumably in the pits of the White House arguing the toss with the Russian chief, his only companion the translator (Larry Hagman) whose face seems to get greyer and greyer as he transmits worse and worse news.

Dr Groeteschele makes matters worse, at least to a pacifist left-wing viewer (though an opposite view would be taken by the hawks), by urging the President to take advantage of computer error and “first strike” and blow Russia to pieces, assuming that indulging in the attack option will result in fewer casualties in America, and thus, following his earlier projections, not just win the war but rid the word of the fear of nuclear war.

While the style is documentary, it’s a riveting watch. The tension is unbearable. Some like Col Cascio (Fritz Weaver) succumb to the pressure while the commanding General Black (Dan O’Herlihy) retains a stolid soldierly presence.

Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, 1964) doesn’t put a foot wrong. Taking the line – rather than in The Bedford Incident (1965) of the wrong man with his finger on the button – of the right man trying to make the best of a botched job, he delivers a just superb picture. Walter Bernstein (The Magnificent Seven, 1960) does a terrific job in delivering a taut screenplay from a more meandering novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler.

There probably couldn’t be a more prescient movie for today.

Tag: Larry Hagman

The Group (1966) ***

Fail-Safe (1964) *****